


the bittersweet between my teeth

by nagia



Series: sure to lure someone bad [6]
Category: Criminal Minds, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, F/M, Female Stiles Stilinski, Two Lines No Waiting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-19 00:13:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2367113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagia/pseuds/nagia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven years after the kanima incident, a group of hunters abducts Stiles Stilinski from her MFA program in Portland, Oregon.  This would be much more easily solved if, within twenty-four hours, that same group of hunters hadn't abducted Derek Hale in Beacon Hills, California.</p><p>It's an unfortunate coincidence that they've abducted a string of people before Stiles, and the Behavioral Analysis Unit has been looking into the six bodies they've left scattered across the United States.</p><p>At least the Sheriff can call in a few favors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the bittersweet between my teeth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dogstar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dogstar/gifts).



> See end notes for warnings.

The mood it changes like the wind  
Hard to control when it begins

The bittersweet between my teeth  
Trying to find the in-betweens  
Fall back in love eventually  
Yeah yeah yeah yeah

Can't help myself but count the flaws  
Claw my way out through these walls  
One temporary escape  
Feel it start to permeate

We lie beneath the stars at night  
Our hands gripping each other tight  
You keep my secrets hope to die  
Promises, swear them to the sky

— The Naked And Famous, "Young Blood"

* * *

Stiles's steps are sharp as she rounds the corner away from Twelfth Avenue, as if she's still escaping the nearly disastrous meeting with her advisor. She feels surprisingly safe, for the first time since she arrived in Portland. It's not that Portland is an unsafe town, and even the supernatural scene is pretty mellow, but Stiles is a committed emissary to a different wolf pack, and that makes things weird. 

It doesn't help that Alpha Eileen Graham has outright forbidden Stiles to develop long term ties, even ones as mild as friendship. It's left her feeling unmoored, undefended. She has no real contact outside of work and class, nothing holding her down. The thing with Derek — and sure, it's casual and kind of on hold while she stays in Oregon — has showed her how awesome repeat sex can be, how good it can get when you really take the time to _learn_ each other. So rather than subject herself to potentially disappointing one night stands, she's been going through Astroglide and batteries like nobody's business. In the end, nothing gives her presence here any meaning; she can't wait to finish her project and book it the hell back to Beacon Hills. 

Which is probably exactly what Alpha Graham wants, and, well, congratulations: Alpha Graham wins. She's managed to make motherfucking _Portland, Oregon_ seem bland and awful and _Beacon Hills, California_ homey and welcoming and perfect. Just the thought makes Stiles feel even more disgruntled about her decision to pursue her MFA here, rather than anywhere else on the planet, and she ducks her head and tries to ignore the town even as she makes her way through it. It's not easy; it's raining again, and she's forgotten her damned umbrella. It seems sometimes like nobody else in the city bothers with them — they just make do with light jackets, too used to the frequent rain.

But hey! The jobs at the community center have not only paid her bills for the month, they paid for a new iron bar through her ear. She'd be happier with a tattoo, but no connections means no finding an artist willing to work in the materials she'd need. Iron's good for amulets of protection, anyway.

So for once in her life, werewolves, kanimas, and hunters aren't going to be her biggest problems. (Apart from socially.) No, that's going to be convincing Dr. Arianne Washington that her children's book project is actually a worthy endeavor that will earn her the Master's degree she's going for.

A car pulls up next to her, then slows. The passenger side window rolls down.

"Not now, Jelen," Stiles says. "I can't really do anything about your stupid new rash, and I'm not your pack's emissary."

"Alpha Graham wants to see you," Alex Jelen growls. "Cusack's getting out. Give your wolfsbane to her."

Stiles sighs and rolls her eyes, but she digs in her messenger bag for the wolfsbane she carries. She's made it a point to carry Northern Blue ever since she started carrying it — thank you, Argents — but she also keeps Larkspurleaf, Trailing White, and Carmichael's Monkshood. She pulls the bottles from her bag, each one containing a flower, a root sample, and a powder sample, and hands them over to Gracie Cusack.

The redhead accepts them with a cautious smile, but her blue eyes look strangely sad. As Stiles reaches for the car's door handle, Gracie reaches out and envelopes her in a hug, her first since moving to Portland from Forest Grove.

"See you around, Gracie," Stiles says, keeping her tone easy, though she knows the werewolf heard her heartbeat speed up.

"Yeah," Gracie replies with a nervous finger wave as Stiles crawls into the Crown Vic. "See you."

Gracie's such a shit liar.

The Crown Vic's doors lock automatically.

* * *

"You can see the exact moment our victim realized she was in trouble," David Rossi said, pointing at the grainy security video. Even with the distance from the camera, they could all see the victim's head jerk up, dark hair flying as she banged both fists against the rear windshield, then began kicking at the back passenger window.

"Smart girl," Prentiss said, tone approving. "She was wearing the boots for that; it could have worked."

They all watched, for the third time, as the man in the driver's seat reached back and, with nearly inhuman ease, grabbed one of the victim's knees in one big hand, virtually immobilizing her.

Garcia whistled. "Is he an Olympic athlete? That is some serious hand strength. Anyway, the abduction isn't even the interesting part, because he is not the droid we're looking for. He's got an alibi for all the other abductions — he's never left Oregon in his life."

"So what's the interesting part?" JJ asked, leaning forward.

"Somebody broke into Stilinski's apartment within twenty-four hours of the car trip from hell. They didn't take anything, but they left fourteen silver bullets."

That piqued Morgan's interest. "What caliber?"

".45," Aaron said. "Big enough to be showy, but it'd be useless in an actual firearm. Why silver bullets, though? And why that number?"

"Could be a nod to her MFA project," Rossi said. "She's writing about werewolves, after all."

Reid shook his head, flipping the edges of his dossier without actually looking back down at it. "No, that can't be the connection. The signature goes back to their first abductions in Maine, and neither of those victims had any known interest in lycanthropy."

"Except one of them had a garden full of wolfsbane," Prentiss said. "And one of the victims in the New York abduction was carrying the powdered ash of a rowan tree."

"Are we seriously discussing lycanthropy connections?" Aaron's brow lowered. "Silver's considered a pure metal. Could it have something to do with that? They could be announcing themselves as wolves."

"Fourteen bullets per abductee. Twenty-eight bullets, twenty-eight days in the lunar cycle..." The corner of JJ's lips quirked up. 

Aaron gave her a warning look before turning back to the dossier. "What's our time frame?"

"Bodies are found about two months after abduction, recently deceased. Stilinski's been missing forty-eight hours, Hale twenty-four."

"Cause of death?"

"Different ones for each member of the abducted pair." Reid flipped through the dossier. They all pretended not to notice as Garcia looked away from the projection. "The less-damaged victim usually has a sharpened rowan spike shoved through his heart and severe levels of aconite poisoning. The more-damaged victim also has at least mild aconite poisoning, but they're killed execution style."

Morgan shifted in his seat. "A sign of remorse? 'You've suffered enough, have a quick death?'"

"Somebody isn't feeling _that_ much remorse," Rossi said, let his tone run a little dry. "They dump the bodies like garbage."

"Alright. Wheels up in two hours," Aaron said. "We'll reconvene on the plane. Morgan, you and Reid will fly on to Portland once we touch down on the west coast. The rest of us will stay in Beacon Hills, the last known location of our unsubs."

* * *

Isaac was pacing fit to wear a hole in his office floor. The Sheriff sighed, but he couldn't entirely blame the kid. If he understood all this werewolf nonsense — and having known about werewolves for six years, he'd hope he understood at least a hefty chunk of it — then the littlest murder suspect was missing his alpha. And, even worse, with Derek out of commission, he should have been able to turn to Stiles, but not only had she moved out of state, she'd gone missing, too.

No. Not gone missing. Been kidnapped. He swallowed against the tangled knot of pressure the thought tied into his chest.

"I've called in the FBI," Stilinski said. He'd been keeping an eye on repeating unsolved crimes ever since the blowup with the Argents, the Yaegers, the Kasuns, and the Whateverikovs who'd all thrown some sort of goddamn werewolf-stalking _party_ in his town. At the same time. "If it's hunters, they'll find them."

"If it's hunters, they _won't_ find them," Isaac snapped back. His shoulders were tense, his hands clenched as if he longed to pop his claws out.

Stilinski dropped the reassuring act. Instead, he used his I Am Your Unamused Boss voice as he said, "Deputy Lahey. If you'd please _calm the hell down_."

Lahey relaxed minutely, before suddenly tensing up again. "Someone's here. They're driving SUV's, not squad cars."

"That'll be the FBI. Out of my office, Deputy Lahey. Bad enough you're in both their social circles. I don't need this investigation looking like some sort of incestuous clusterfuck; they'll focus on all the wrong things and won't find my daughter in time."

Isaac left his office, returned to his desk in the bullpen, and began mindlessly turning through paperwork. He looked relaxed, but Stilinski was sure the boy was ready to shred something.

Stilinski had just left his office to refill his coffee cup — decaf; Stiles had insisted for so long that it had become a habit and he almost didn't notice the taste anymore — when the FBI agents strolled right into the Sheriff's Department. It wasn't the Rafael McCall stride of We Are Going To Own This Podunk Department, but he couldn't help resenting that he couldn't use the pack of werewolves, witches, and weird things at his disposal to find his daughter.

What the hell good were those enhanced senses for, if they couldn't even track members of their own pack? It probably wasn't a rational feeling, but it was all he had to cling to that wasn't the gibbering fear that Stiles would be tortured, possibly raped, beaten, and then executed. He didn't want that for Derek, either.

"You must be the Behavioral Analysis Unit," he said to the slim blonde who had entered ahead of the rest. He offered his hand. "Sheriff Stilinski."

She took his hand and graced him with a sparkling photogenic smile. "Yes. I'm Supervisory Special Agent Jennifer Jareau. This is SSA Aaron Hotchner, our unit chief, and behind him are Supervisory Special Agents Emily Prentiss and David Rossi."

Stilinski shook hands with Hotchner and nodded at the slightly more distant agents. "I've set aside an office for you. You can thank Matt Daehler for us almost having the room."

"Daehler?" The question came from the bearded agent, Rossi.

"Serial-turned-spree killer who took down most of my deputies about seven years back. I take it the news didn't make it to the east coast." Stilinski gestured to the memorial plaque, listing the names of the deputies who'd died, as he led them toward the office he'd cleared for FBI usage.

"I wasn't really paying attention to contemporary serial killers seven years ago," Rossi said. There was a tension in his voice, and Stilinski couldn't help the sudden sharp hook of realizing there was a story there, and it would be an interesting one. Stiles had the same voice of temptation, and resisted it less often.

But all he really cared about, Stilinski reminded himself, was whether the BAU team could find Derek Hale, and hopefully without tripping over too much supernatural crap. He'd have to trust the agent who was in the know to deflect where they could.

"Well, it was years back, anyway. We've done our best to move on. Is this the whole team?" 

"No," Hotchner said. "I've sent two agents ahead to Portland, and our technical analyst works best from Quantico."

"Sheriff Stilinski," Jareau offered, "it's my understanding that Cheh — Shuh — that Miss Stilinski is your daughter?"

Ah, that wrinkle. He buried his amusement at the inability of native english speakers to pronounce Stiles's name, launched into the spiel he'd mentally prepared.

"I'll stay out of your way as regards the Portland half of the case, but I can't exactly recuse myself from the Beacon Hills abduction. Pretty much everyone in this town, never mind this department, knows both — both victims. He's a volunteer with the county fire department, and she's been in and out of the station since she was born."

Hotchner and Jareau exchanged looks, but seemed to accept his answer.

"We'll have a profile for you within forty-eight hours," Hotchner said. "With that, you should be able to canvas Beacon Hills. I assume you've been looking into any new people in town?"

Stilinski nodded, clenched his jaw for a moment. "The local hotels haven't had any reservations, but there are plenty of abandoned houses, and a few hunting lodges up near the thick part of the woods someone determined could break into. Just tell me, do you think they've already moved to their next hunting ground?"

"No," Rossi said, and sounded absolutely certain. "They need someplace remote, someplace isolated, for what they do. That Preserve of yours — the abandoned houses, the empty lodges in the woods — that's perfect for them."

"Time frame seems about right for them to get most of the torture out of the way here, where it's nice and quiet and nobody will hear them scream," Stilinski couldn't help agreeing. He couldn't help how grim his voice turned, either, as he imagined Stiles screaming her throat raw deep in the woods, and nobody but Derek caring.

Isaac looked up from where he sat, and for a moment, his eyes burned gold.

* * *

"So who's the car registered to?" Derek Morgan asked, glaring out the airport doors at the gray rain that swept down.

Reid ignored him, instead heading for the car rental. The woman behind the Enterprise counter gave him a sunny, if vacant smile. Morgan hung back; he tried to let Reid and his unaware, awkward charm handle women. Maybe he'd sweet-talk her into renting him a Suburban.

The woman pointed at a bright yellow Smart Car. Oh, hell no. And she was proving completely impervious to Reid; in fact, she was all but glaring at him now.

Morgan stepped in. "No, no, no. You are not renting us a Smart Car. We're FBI. We need an actual vehicle."

Twenty minutes later, after talk of badge numbers and way more paperwork than Morgan recalled Hotch ever needing to sign, they peeled away from the parking lot in a lime green Prius that seemed to be _trying_ to be ugly.

"The Crown Vic was registered to Alexander Jelen," Reid said almost apropos of nothing, looking out the window.

"What's his connection to Stilinski?" 

"Possible shared Polish heritage? I don't know. Next of kin couldn't name any of her associates in Portland. I don't think he thought she had any." Reid sounded faintly troubled. "Do you think she had a social anxiety disorder?"

"She taught bellydancing and self defense at a community center. That doesn't sound like somebody with a crippling fear of associating with other people." 

It also didn't sound, on paper, like a woman who would be easy to abduct. But he'd seen her try and fail to kick out the window, had watched a man a foot taller than she was subdue her inside a moving vehicle with all the ease of a basketball player palming a newborn kitten. Jelen was a man to watch, that was for sure. Not that Morgan hadn't already planned on being the one to interrogate Jelen; hopefully, Reid's usually reliable charm wouldn't be such a devastating miss with Grace Cusack as it had been with the Enterprise lady.

"Hey, how about you handle Cusack?"

"Are you worried about Jelen snapping me like a twig, or are you just throwing me at the female witnesses again?"

"Five says she gives you her number," Morgan said, and spent a few moments not minding the rain.

* * *

Stiles is in pain even before she wakes up all the way. Her entire body throbs in a sort of warm, almost comforting haze. But slowly, as consciousness returns, the pain begins to intensify, becomes specific rather than general. Welling up red and swollen in every joint, sticking her eyes together, turning her jawline into something split wide and raw.

Honestly, she feels kind of like half-chewed hamburger meat. And thirsty.

She tries to open her eyes, but finds that one lid feels gummy and strange. So she relaxes back against whatever she was leaning or lying against, lets her eye fall closed, and lifts one slow finger to press against the other. It's hot and puffy and it hurts to touch. Jesus, what a shiner. What the hell did she do?

"Alright, who'd I piss off this time?"

Signs her life is terrible: electricity's become a very familiar, distinctive sound. Like a cross between shattering glass and really loud buzzing flies, and it seems to echo around in her head, vibrating down into the roots of her teeth, a while before it forms words.

"...est interest to remain quiet, Emissary Hale."

"Can I get some water?" Stiles tries to sit up, opens her good eye to help the process. At first everything looks like a smear of color, but as she blinks away tears, her surroundings resolve into some kind of windowless concrete room. She's on the very wrong side of some iron bars, and from the way they hum with little pinpricks that run up and down her sinuses, itching painfully in her cheeks and ears and throat, she guesses they're electrified.

A hunter in his mid forties glares at her from the side of the bars she wants to be on. "I said _quiet_ , Emissary Hale."

"And I asked for —" The hunter's electro-rod extends. Stiles yelps and squirms — or tries to — in the general direction of _away_ from pain in plastic stick form. "Nevermind. Jesus. You're serious."

"The emissary awake?" Another hunter asks as he slides a big metal door open. He looks younger than the man who'd been keeping an eye on her, though he has a nasty pair of claw scars extending from his temple down his cheek.

"Awake and annoying," the hunter with the rod says. He half-turns, and says to someone Stiles can't see, "But mostly unharmed. A little cosmetic damage, but nothing serious."

Stiles doesn't even get a chance to protest that he gave her a shiner and her joints feel godawful, because two more hunters come in half-dragging a tall, broad-shouldered man with dark hair and a thick beard, with cheekbones and a jawline she'd recognize anywhere. The suspiciously familiar taste in henleys doesn't hurt.

"Derek?"

"Alpha Hale," the hunter with the rod — the oldest one in the room — says, "please make sure your emissary restrains herself from further comment, or you won't like the way we shut her up for you."

Derek lifts his head and gives the hunter a bleary, half-aware look, and Stiles watches in horror as black lines crawl along the veins in his arms. His ridiculously gorgeous biceps, ruined by either wolfsbane or mistletoe poisoning. Then his gaze turns in Stiles's general direction. He seems to have problems focusing, or maybe he just can't line up thoughts right now, because he stares at her, face utterly vacant, before finally squinting and saying, "Stiles?"

Stiles opens her mouth to reply, then looks at the electro-rod, and decides on a nod. She wants to scream at the hunters, wants to demand which wolfsbane they used, wants to demand to know if it was mistletoe. But she bites down hard on her lip.

"It's just some basic Trailing White," the oldest hunter says, apparently noting the way her eyes trailed up the black veins. "We'll provide ash for a cure once we have him in the cell."

"You don't want to kill him?"

The hunter with the claw scars actually laughs. "Oh, we're going to kill you both. Eventually."

Smoothly, as if the younger guy speaking for him isn't a challenge to his authority, the oldest hunter adds, "But the Kasun family has some questions, and I'd like to be the one to answer them."

* * *

The cheerful voice at the other end of the line was completely at odds with the surly figure seated in Interrogation One. Jelen wasn't particularly tall, but he was stocky and round-cheeked. He wore carpenter's jeans and plaid that clashed with his high-tops, and he'd grown out a beard that, frankly, made him look like the grumpiest lumberjack in Portland. The huge biceps solidified the impression of a man who chewed through trees and then threw them down a mountain for a living.

Morgan stared at the phone. "What do you mean no link?"

Garcia replied, "I mean no link, handsome. Nada. Nothing. Zilcho. There is no paper trail leading between Stilinski and Alex Jelen. He's not a grad student, he's not a student in her classes at the community center, he doesn't even live near her. If there were something, I'd find it, but even I can't make paper where there isn't any."

"And Cusack?"

"Nothing there, either, and there's no paper connection between her and Jelen."

"Well, we know they got into a car together. It might not be on paper, but it's there. We'll use what we've got."

"Sorry, sweetcheeks," she said, and Morgan only laughed. "Not your fault, baby doll."

He opened the door and headed into the interrogation room. Jelen looked up. It wasn't a brief look — no, he widened his eyes for a moment, brow rising, before he simply settled into a long stare. He never once broke eye contact. Morgan couldn't help receiving the impression that it was a challenge.

"Alex Jelen?"

"Yes." Jelen's tone was clipped, his voice slightly higher pitched than Morgan would have expected.

Morgan just went ahead with his planned introduction. "I'm Supervisory Special Agent Derek Morgan. Sorry to bring you in like this, but you're one of the last three people seen in the company of a Miss Seshpanja Stilinski, and we have a few questions."

"You'll have to direct all questions to Eileen Graham," Jelen replied, sounding completely un-concerned. He reached into his jacket, withdrew a card, and slid it onto the table.

Morgan reached out for it, and felt his brows draw down as he read, _Eileen Graham, C. P. A._ , followed by an email adress, a telephone number, and a fax number. Jelen didn't look like the type to have an accountant. Jelen barely looked like the type to store his money in a bank account; Morgan wouldn't have been surprised, from both the grizzled appearance and the macho demeanor, if Jelen didn't even bother with direct deposit.

"Is Eileen your accountant?"

"You'll have to ask her," Jelen replied.

"I'm asking you," Morgan said. He leaned in. He couldn't hope to intimidate the man, but he could at least meet his challenge stare for stare and hope for a little respect.

"That's nice. But you'll have to ask her." The corner of Jelen's mouth curled, as if he was saying _Suck on that_.

"Is there a particular reason I should ask her instead of you?"

Jelen smiled, but something about the smile was off. It showed too many teeth, didn't reach his eyes. It reminded Morgan of a monkey peeling its lips back right before it started shrieking and biting.

"I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it may require me to incriminate myself. In fact, I refuse to discuss Miss Stilinski or Ms. Graham, on those same grounds. Are you holding me here?"

"No," Morgan said. He felt like he should have had better bargaining tools, but he had pretty much nothing against this kind of code of silence. "But I'm seriously considering advising that you be charged as an accessory to kidnapping. Never mind obstruction of justice, and if we don't find her, the kidnapping can be laid at your doorstep."

Jelen shrugged. "Go ahead. You won't find her, and I still don't have to answer any of your questions."

The man was actually willing to risk criminal charges and prison time and having to post bail, all to avoid having to answer questions that he was, apparently, supposed to allow his personal accountant to answer. Rossi and Prentiss would get kicks out of this, just for the _weird_ factor. Or, well, would if two people weren't at serious risk of being killed in the next two months.

"Then I guess you're free to go. Thanks for Miss Graham's contact information." Jelen stood without being invited to, and was out the door before Morgan could stop him or leave first. Morgan watched him go and resisted the urge to scratch his head.

He'd seen some weird things. But this was some of the weirdest behavior from a potential witness or accomplice since the time with the parents who'd been covering for their sibling-murdering kid.

He followed Jelen out the door and looked through the two-way mirror into Interrogation Two. Reid was sitting across the table from a redheaded young woman, who had bent over the table with heaving shoulders, her white-knuckled fists pressed against her eyes. Reid had leaned away from her, looking baffled. Between them sat a white business card. Morgan had no doubts about the name on that card.

So he reached out, flicked on the monitoring equipment.

"I-I'm _sorry_ ," Grace Cusack sobbed. "I'm sorry. Emilia Grace Cusack —"

Reid leaned forward "— Miss Cusack, how do you know Eileen Graham?"

"Emilia Grace Cusack, five-four-zero-two-nine-two-two-three-one. I'm so _sorry_."

"Miss Cusack, did you know what was going to happen to Miss Stilinski? Is that why you hugged her? Will Eileen Graham hurt you if you tell us anything? If she's threatening you, we can protect you."

But Cusack only sobbed harder and said, "Emilia Grace Cusack, five-four-zero-two-nine-two-two-three-one."

"What was in the bottles that Miss Stilinski gave you?"

"Emilia Grace Cusack —"

"— Five-four-zero-two-nine-two-two-three-one," Reid rattled with her, then sighed. "Very well, Miss Cusack. That was all I needed to ask, so you're free to go."

Still crying, she hurried out of the room, leaving her chair so quickly that it actually fell over. She rushed straight past Morgan, bone-straight red hair streaming past. As Morgan turned to watch her, he saw Jelen quickly fold her in a hug. She pressed her cheek against his, then tucked the top of her head under his chin.

"Jelen wasn't any better. Fifth Amendment," Morgan said.

"Name and social," Reid replied. "But the tears and apology are interesting. I get the feeling she wanted to help us, but this Eileen Graham person has her intimidated into silence. Scary girlfriend, maybe? I'd ask about mob connections, but Portland isn't the kind of city where mob bosses pass as CPAs." If there even was such a city — nevermind one where women could climb that high inside the mob — outside of television.

"I'd say cult leader." Which was weird, actually. Those possibilities usually left very distinct impressions. "I threatened to try and stick him with accessory, obstruction, and kidnapping. He told me he wouldn't have to answer even if I did charge him. Who's willing to risk prison for an abusive girlfriend?"

"Rossi and Prentiss are going to have a field day with this," Reid sighed. "I actually made a female witness _cry_."

"Your charm has officially abandoned you, my friend." But Morgan clapped him on the shoulder and said, "Let's call it in."

* * *

"Name and social," Hotch said, half asking, half just thinking aloud, "like a prisoner of war?"

"Like she thought Reid was the enemy?" Emily Prentiss folded her arms across her chest and looked to Sheriff Stilinski. "Sheriff, you have any ideas, here?"

"Portland's not my jurisdiction," he replied easily. His voice was a hair tighter when he added, "And it doesn't exactly surprise me that the girl who hugged my daughter before closing her in a car she couldn't escape from might be a little _weird_."

There was a faint note of accusation to his tone, as if he'd hoped they would understand the weird way Cusack's mind evidently worked, rather than expect him to do it. Emily couldn't entirely blame him. Not only had he specifically alerted Rossi of this crime and how it matched the others — practically asking for help without necessarily inviting them — he wasn't really permitted an official opinion on the Portland half of the case. He'd recused himself.

"It's definitely sounding more and more like a cult," Rossi said. "Between Jelen being willing to risk prison time, and Cusack's teary reaction, I'd say Graham has some sort of superior position in a cult."

JJ asked, "But how does Sez — Sesh —"

"Just call her Stiles," the Sheriff said, tone clearly amused. "God knows most of Beacon Hills does." With that, he made his way out the door. "I'm sorry, but I've got to coordinate with my deputies on some illegal weaponry."

"Any possibility it's —?"

But before JJ could finish her question, the Sheriff said, "No, I don't think so. A local and some guests with tasers I can't call street-legal. Local's a law enforcement supplier, which is just the _best_ news I've had since Thursday."

"Jesus," Rossi said once the door was closed. "I'd almost forgotten how much I _love_ small towns."

"So the Portland puzzle is a cult. Any chance that's what's happening here?" Emily asked. "I mean, judging by his job and his driver's license, Hale was not an easy target."

"It'd almost require combat training to put him down. Or a serious size advantage, and I wouldn't rely on that." Hotch frowned down at the phone on the desk.

They'd seen the photos, though none of them had gotten the chance to visit the abduction site yet. Stilinski had suggested saving that for an hour they'd be guaranteed full daylight and after a night of sleep. Evidently, the roads through the Beacon Hills Preserve were treacherous.

"Stilinski's got a note here that Hale had deliberately sabotaged his driveway with potholes, presumably so people who didn't know him couldn't access the house as easily," JJ said. "Paranoia, or precaution? Did he know this cult might target him?"

"He's the only survivor of a house fire that was apparently deliberately set. The fact that he's worked through enough of his trauma to volunteer at the fire department's kind of a minor miracle," Rossi pointed out. "I'm not even sure we can call it paranoia, since he has concrete proof that somebody wanted to get him, and now somebody's gotten him again."

"But whether he knew it would be this particular somebody, that's a really good question." Emily thought for a moment, and then said, "Wait, he was involved with Stiles, right? What if he knew she'd gone missing, and then started to prepare?"

"But why would he expect whoever targeted Stiles to target him? No matter what way I look at this, something isn't fitting right," JJ said. Next to her, Hotch continued to frown.

* * *

Grizzled Hunter Veteran shoves the white flower and root of the wolfsbane they'd evidently used on Derek into a bowl, but he takes his sweet time grinding it into powder, nevermind lighting it on fire so she can actually cure her alpha. Derek, for his part, had immediately curled himself near her, pressing his nose into the hollow where her throat met her shoulder. Every time she tilted his head up so she could check on him, his eyes had been unfocused, and he'd answered 'Who's the President?' with 'Don't go back to Portland.' 

Quite frankly, Stiles agrees. Fuck Portland, fuck Alpha Graham, fuck her MFA. If she gets out of this alive — and she's only pretending if she says that's a certainty — she's going to enter the police academy in Sacramento and just pursue life as a deputy, like she'd originally planned. She can write her children's book in her spare time, like a normal person.

Eventually, Geezer Hunter sets the wolfsbane on fire, then pours a little water from a canteen into the ash. Rather than cut the power to the bars, he just jerks his head at one of his lackeys, who crosses to a power box on the opposite wall and pulls a huge switch. The entire room plunges into darkness.

Somebody flicks on a MagLite, and in the narrow white beam, Stiles sees the bowl slide through the bars. The young hunter must throw the breaker switch back, because as soon as the bowl's on their side of the bars, the lights come back on and the bars start to buzz in her teeth and sinus cavities again.

So they don't have anything really important hooked up in here. That's nice to know, she supposes. Doesn't really give her any advantages, but still nice to know.

Stiles reaches out for the bowl, half-cradling Derek where he hasn't moved from the junction of her neck and shoulder. She tries to be gentle, but ends up manhandling him into a more upright position 

"Drink this," she murmurs to him.

He opens his mouth, lets her pour the slurry of ash and water in. His throat works as he swallows, glassy eyes fluttering closed with the effort of it. Shivers overtake him, making him spasm and his teeth chatter, and he nuzzles against her throat, drawing in deep, gasping breaths.

"Hey, big guy. You feeling any better?"

Derek tilts his head and throws up something tacky and black and foul-smelling in her lap. Of course he does.

* * *

Morgan expected the mysterious Eileen Graham to work out of some eighth-story office suite, with a sitting room and a secretary and a potted plant. But just as Portland wasn't the kind of town where heavy-duty Omertà-type mobsters posed as CPAs, it also wasn't the kind of city where Ms. Graham would be anything like he expected.

Graham lived and worked in a bungalow on the northwest edge of the city, far enough out on the ragged edges that the Gifford Pinchot National Forest seemed to encroach on her land. Her yard had no fence, no wall, only an herb garden and long grass she apparently let run wild. Her driveway was long, gravel, full of dips and puddles and spots where the gravel had worn thin and the dirt gone white.

"Not a lady who likes company," Morgan muttered to Reid as he shut the car off. "Wonder how she drums up any business."

They clambered out of the car — Reid took the opportunity to stretch — and then headed up out of the drive, toward the house. 

The woman herself was waiting in an overstuffed loveseat on her veranda. She'd curled her legs onto the loveseat and had a mug of coffee in one hand. Her short hair glinted auburn in the porch lights.

"I work mostly online these days, and for a very select clientele," Graham said. She unfolded herself from her seat even as she rose, every movement economical. She offered her hand to Morgan, never once dropping eye contact. "I'm Eileen Graham. And you gentlemen are...?"

"I'm Special Agent Derek Morgan, and with me is Dr. Spencer Reid." 

She had a firm handshake, and curved her lips up when Reid gave her his usual awkward finger wave.

"Both Alex Jelen and Gracie Cusack told us that we should pose any questions about the disappearance of Stiles Stilinski to you," Reid said. "I'm going to assume you're not their accountant?"

Graham laughed. "Oh no, Dr. Reid. I absolutely am." With that, she turned a canny gaze on the both of them, her brown eyes luminous and dark, as she said, "Please, let's step into the den. My wife just baked some banana bread, if you'd like any?"

Morgan looked to Reid, who was looking back at him. A silent moment of _what the actual hell_ passed between them as they followed Graham into her home and through a hallway until they reached a room with a comfortable-looking couch and a couple of armchairs. Graham took one of the armchairs, then motioned toward the couch.

"Your superior quite threw you to the wolves, I'm afraid," she said, in a conversational tone. In that exact same tone, at that exact same volume, she added, "Johanna, do you mind bringing some of that bread for our guests?"

Graham's wife — which, what? Was gay marriage legal in Oregon, or had they tied the knot in a neighboring state? — must have been nearby, because after a moment, she brought in a plate covered in slices of banana bread that looked and smelled delicious. Neither Morgan nor Reid reached for it, even after Johanna left it on the coffee table. She pressed a kiss to the top of Graham's head and smiled at them before she left the room, closing the door behind her.

Graham's smile turned sharp. "Now. Let's talk about Alex and Gracie. Yes, I'm their accountant, and no, I'm not their lawyer, but I'm absolutely the reason they took Miss Stilinski's wolfsbane and helped her into a car that would take her out of town."

"How do the four of you know each other?" Morgan leaned forward. Graham was setting off every single one of his creep senses, and he couldn't help glancing at the closed door, but answers were answers. And Hotch knew where he and Reid were.

Graham gave him a serene smile and cut a slice of banana bread for herself. She popped it into her mouth, chewing sedately, and then said, "They're in my pack."

* * *

The two women standing next to the Jeep on the outskirts of the Beacon Hills Preserve were both beautiful, in a night-and-day contrast. One of them, golden-skinned with short black hair and dark eyes that, even from a distance, were both kind and mischievous, wore a crisp white labcoat over the uniform of a Beacon County Sheriff's Deputy. The other — whose deeply tanned skin and sensuous red lips complemented a fall of golden curls — wore mud-stained riding boots over a park ranger's uniform.

Aaron Hotchner really hadn't been expecting either of them. Beside him, Rossi let out a low whistle; evidently, the blonde heard, because her eyes snapped to look at them.

"Kira Yukimura," the woman in the labcoat said, offering a hand. "I generally stick to forensic analysis, but..."

"Kira didn't trust me to get you to the Hale house in one piece," the blonde said. "I'm Erica Reyes."

"Aaron Hotchner," Aaron said. Yukimura had a good handshake, her grip delicate but firm. Reyes grasped his hand and squeezed, her eyes on his face, evidently searching for some sign of pain. When he didn't wince, she squeezed him a little gentler and smiled. "And with me is David Rossi."

"A pleasure to meet you, ladies," Rossi said, with a grin that was all teeth. None of them made any move to shake each other's hands.

Then again, Reyes seemed eager to get going. They all clambered into the black Jeep, and it was soon rattling down the pitted, leaf-strewn, dirt-and-gravel roads of the Preserve.

"And you say the Hale family always lived in the woods?"

"Ever since Beacon Hills was founded," Reyes said. "Back in the seventies, they were a major force behind the preservation efforts in these forests. Talia Hale — Derek's mother — was fighting for permission to reintroduce wolves to this forest in the last days before the fire."

"So these are, in a sense, the Hales' woods." Rossi leaned forward, cocking an eyebrow.

Reyes shrugged, so Aaron asked, "Is there any possibility of new people moving into the forest?"

Reyes looked to Yukimura. Both women shrugged.

Reyes said, "There are some cabins in the woods that could be broken into, I guess. Back when the Hales were alive, you'd be stupid to try, but with the Argents splitting most of their time between here and Lozère, and Derek out of commission… It could happen."

"The Argents?"

Reyes just gave them a sharp smile.

"You've been quiet, Miss Yukimura," Rossi said.

"I'm not from here," Yukimura said. "Erica's lived here all her life, but I didn't move here until my last year of high school. She knows the stories and the players a lot better than I do; I just listen to evidence." 

The Jeep hit some sort of nasty pothole, and Reyes swore. "That one's new. Gimme a sec, I'll try and get us on a decent course. I swear, it'll be damn landmines next."

Quietly, Yukimura asked, "Can you blame him?

Reyes jerked hard on the wheel, sending the Jeep into crazed turns, and didn't answer. At last, the treeline cleared, and a large wooden house with a wraparound porch faded into view. Somebody had strung up a hammock on the porch. There was a picnic table in what might have been the front yard, but mostly, Aaron found himself just staring at the Queen Anne monstrosity hiding away in a junction between three national forests.

Perhaps, years ago, it might have looked welcoming and open. But with its dark green paint and steel shutters, it looked like a cross between a morbid monument and a fortress. Someone had planted ivy and morning glories to climb along a set of trellises and arches, creating a kind of living carport, under which a sleek black Camaro and a sturdy blue Jeep sheltered.

"Huh. Didn't know she left her car with Derek," Yukimura said. "Guess it makes sense, though. That thing's from, what, 1980, and Graham didn't want her making permanent connections in Portland."

"Permanent connections?" Rossi asked, at the same time Aaron asked, "You mean Eileen Graham?"

Yukimura and Reyes looked at each other, before Yukimura smiled. "Yeah, Eileen Graham. You're aware of her connection, right?"

"I know she's connected," Aaron said. "I didn't know that _you_ knew."

"We didn't know that you _didn't_ know," Yukimura said. "Oh my god, Erica, they don't know. The Sheriff is going to be so mad."

"Hey, I'm a Park Ranger. I don't worry about the Sheriff," Reyes said, scuffing the soles of her mud-encrusted boots on the gravel drive. She indicated the property with a sweep of her hand. "Welcome to the Hale house, Agents Hotchner and Rossi." 

With that, Reyes mounted the stairs and swung one foot onto the slim pillars that supported the porch's roof and acted as railing, crab walking until she hit a pillar, then grabbed the pillar in one hand and the porch roof in the other. She heaved herself onto the porch roof with almost no effort.

Rossi whistled again. Aaron started trying to fit everything he'd learned about the case from the Sheriff, and everything that Morgan and Reid had learned, into some kind of cohesive whole. But it just didn't seem to fit.

Reyes stalked the porch roof, tapping shingles until she found what must have been the right one. She lifted it and pulled out something that glinted brass.

"Spare key," she said, and swung herself back down from the porch roof with the same careless ease.

"I'd have just gone in the window," Yukimura said.

"That's because you don't know Derek the way us rangers do. That window is locked up tight." Reyes unlocked the front door and pushed it open. "Come on in."

"Has nobody gone in yet?" It didn't make sense. If nobody had gone in, then how did they know — 

"The door was standing open, with Derek's keys in the floor of the front hall," Yukimura said. "Sheriff Stilinski's the one who locked it up so it wouldn't be disturbed. He has the key now."

Reyes stopped moving in the front hall, just after the door had opened. Her gaze flicked around the small room, tracking something invisible along the wooden floors and bare walls.

"Somebody's been here since the Sheriff came and left. And _not_ deputies; he'd have mentioned it." Reyes' eyes narrowed. "They'd have Stiles's keys, wouldn't they?"

Yukimura shot Rossi and Aaron a look. But whatever she'd been thinking seemed to occur to Reyes, because the other woman nodded and trailed her fingers along the walls, following whatever sign of presence through the house.

For a man whose family had died in a fire, Hale kept a lot of antique wood furnishings around. But the house wasn't cluttered. It looked like Hale liked his furniture to come with a sense of history.

One of the tables had a clear burn mark from one end all the way to the center. Aaron touched it, and wondered.

"Did he buy all this?" Rossi asked. "He doesn't strike me as the antique store type."

"Probably not. Pretty sure the Hales stored their old furniture in a unit in town. They were big on supporting local businesses that way," Reyes said, stopping to rifle through his mail. She even cracked open one of the unread letters, and, at Aaron's frown, said, "What? We've been friends for years. I used to have the biggest lesbian crush on his girlfriend. Hell, one of my best friends rents his apartment from Derek."

"Pretty interconnected police force," Aaron said, keeping his tone deliberately mild.

"It's a small town," Kira said, and rolled her eyes. "Come on, Derek's room is the top floor. And I'll bet that's where our recent visitors went."

"I'm not seeing anything to indicate he was paranoid," Rossi said, softly. "No mirrors, no extra locks, no weapon stashes. Are they sure the potholes were deliberate?"

And then they stepped into a room that was nothing but exercize equipment. A bar for chin-ups, a weight machine, free-standing weights, and three different punching surfaces: a heavy bag suspended from thick chain, a speedbag, and a thick wooden pedestal wrapped round in rope. In the far corner, a ruptured heavy wept sand onto the floor, and he or a contractor had studded the far wall, all the way up to the ceiling, in various grips. 

"Well, he was definitely keeping himself in peak condition."

The free-standing weights had been left ready to lift. Aaron checked the poundage and had to suppress a whistle of his own. He checked the weight machine, but the numbers weren't shrinking.

"I don't see how anybody got him anywhere without either drugging him or extensive military training."

Derek's room took up what might once have been an attic. Someone had left fourteen silver bullets on his bed.

More interesting, somebody had left a wreath of white flowers.

"Wolfsbane," Reyes hissed, and for a moment, Aaron could have sworn her brown eyes looked gold in the light.

* * *

The sun had just started to set and the moon was on the rise — a pale, milk-mild waxing crescent, a young moon, only a day or so past new — when all three of Derek's betas cocked their heads, eyes glowing gold, and turned to face the front door. So Stilinski crept through his darkened home and stepped out to find a man standing on his front lawn. The other man had a dark beard that, for a moment, reminded him of Derek, but his eyes were dark and his face was older. He was slightly shorter than Derek, stood completely wrong, but Stilinski had wanted to hope.

Not that he thought Derek Hale would ever leave Stiles in the clutches of hunters. They might be back in a denial stage, but Stilinski knew his daughter, had seen the look on the older man's face.

"Agent Rossi, right?"

The man nodded, took a step closer.

"Might as well come on in, then," Stilinski said.

"Call me David, for now," Rossi said when the door was closed. "I assume you're not the Sheriff in your own home?"

"Stilinski works," he told the other man. After an awkard moment, he jerked his head for Rossi to follow him, and took him to the living room. None of the betas had stopped tracing the stranger's location, and all of them stared at him with at least a mild degree of hostility.

"I'm actually kind of impressed by how inhuman Ms. Reyes managed to make herself seem," Rossi said. "Although all three of you are being incredibly un-subtle right now. Haven't seen this much head-cocking since the last time I took my labs hunting."

"He's not a wolf," Reyes said, apparently dismissing Rossi. Boyd wrinkled his nose, looking almost delicate, while Isaac flashed his eyes.

"No," Rossi said, agreeably, "but I was born into a large pack. You three are all bitten, I take it?"

"You say that like it matters." Boyd's voice was calm, but Stilinski could tell that he was as on edge as the rest of the betas. He'd brought Erica and Isaac by for dinner without more than a courtesy call, which was downright clingy behavior from the quiet man.

"It doesn't, but it explains a lot about the three of you." Rossi pointed at a chair. Stilinski nodded, and Rossi sat. "Reyes, you do remember your old olfactory senses? Because I've got a unit chief who's wondering how the hell you knew the house had been disturbed. And god, don't get me started on the Graham thing."

"We thought you knew," Reyes said with a shrug.

Rossi gave her a look that made no bones about what he thought of that answer. Stilinski spared a moment to wonder if impressive eyebrows were a secondary trait passed around werewolf packs, like some sort of stopgap measure. Like even if a werewolf's children didn't inherit the lycanthropy, they'd get terrifying brow ridge hair to compensate.

"No, Graham told two other members of my team that the last people your emissary was seen with were in her pack. She never called herself an alpha or a werewolf, but the language she used sounded less cult-like and more straight up delusional." Rossi scrubbed a hand along his face. "Does no one on this coast know how to stay hidden?"

"The Beacon Hills packs are usually better about it," Stilinski said. "I can't speak for the Graham or Sorkin packs."

"Not used to operating without your Alpha?" Rossi addressed the question to Isaac, whose eyes had turned gold again.

"Derek's been out of commission before," Boyd said, his voice soft, his tone reasonable. "So has Stiles. But they've never been completely out for the count at the same time."

Stilinski didn't mention those awful days during the Alpha Pack fiasco — days his daughter had spent holed up with either her friends or feverishly researching past tears, stinking of mistletoe and frankincense and a man's cologne, when he hadn't understood Stiles at all — when it seemed every teenager he laid eyes on had gone crazy. And Derek Hale had been conspicuously absent from the Sunday dinner tradition, instead seen laughing around town with the high school english teacher while Isaac stared, hollow-eyed, at his empty place.

"I understand that both your Alpha and your Emissary are missing," Rossi said, leaning forward in his seat. "But we need to contain this."

"Alright," Stilinski said. "Talk."

* * *

Time passes. Without windows or her phone, Stiles can't guess how much. Long enough for her legs to start to ache from stillness, long enough for Derek to put his head back together and pull away from her.

And, eventually, after two different hunters spend a shift in a folding metal chair, watching her, Geezer Veteran Hunter steps into the room again. He carries a bundle of zip ties and a duffel bag, and one corner of his mouth curls up as he matches Stiles's gaze. His eyes are the same flinty blue as Chris Argent's. Stiles tries to forget the comparison.

"Emissary Hale, if you'd please stand up."

The hunter presently in the metal chair — one of the young guys. This one has a tattoo of barbed wire that loops from his fingers up to his biceps — flicks his wrist, extending his electro-rod.

Stiles has to grip the wall to pull herself to her feet, and sags under the weight of her own vertigo, but she manages to stand.

"Alpha Hale, stay back. If you make any attempt at escape, we'll kill your emissary." Geezer Hunter's voice is clipped, professional. He might as well be discussing a standard medical procedure. "Emissary Hale, we're going to open the gate. Please step over the mountain ash line."

The electro-rod crackles to life, and one of the hunters flips the main switch. It douses all the light in the room, leaving them illuminated only by the cracking, snarling stick in Barbed Wire Guy's hands. Someone, probably Old Veteran, swings the cage door open.

Stiles steps over the line. Old Veteran's hands close immediately around her wrists, jerk her away from the cage and her alpha, and the gate slams shut.

"Shirt off," Geezer says.

"What?"

"Take your shirt off, Emissary Hale, or I'll cut it off."

Stiles shrugs out of her shirt, popping a couple of buttons and then peeling it off from the bottom up. She wads it up and tosses it through the bars. Red eyes flash for a moment, and in the dim, dim light, she sees a clawed hand catch the red fabric.

Old Veteran forces her to raise her hands above her head, then zip ties them to the bars of the cage. There must be a catch or fret work or something, because she can't relax her arms or slip the ties down along either bar. Then she hears a faint _schick_ sound, and her bra falls loose around her shoulders. Veteran Hunter cuts each of her bra straps, until she hears the fabric swish, feels it slide along her skin as it falls to the ground.

"You have to be fucking kidding me," she snarls over her shoulder.

At the sound of a zipper being pulled, her mouth goes dry. All thought flies right out of her head, replaced by _Silent Hill 2_ radio static, and she tries to find words for all the 'no' that's begun to churn in her stomach. In front of her, eyes glowing red, Derek lets out a chest-deep rumbling growl.

But the unzipping sound goes on too long for it to be someone's jeans. A bag? The duffel Geezer Veteran had been carrying?

"Alpha Hale, can you see?" Veteran Hunter's voice is soft. She can barely hear it over Derek's growling. When Derek keeps up the growl rather than answer, Veteran says, again, "Alpha Hale. Can you see what I have here, or do I have to go get a MagLite?"

"I can see." Derek's voice is firm, but he keeps his tone neutral, uninterested. It's his dealing-with-authorities-I-don't-really-recognize voice. Really, more of a humoring-authorities-until-I-kill-them voice.

"Please decide, Alpha Hale." Veteran Hunter's voice is still that mockery of professionalism. He might as well be an American, evil JARVIS for all the inflection he puts into his words. Actually, an American, evil JARVIS would probably speak with more personality.

"What?" Derek sounds pole-axed.

"You're picking which I use. I recommend starting with one of the middle ones; the thin one tends to lacerate quickly, and the metal pipe could break bones. Now come on, son. Choose."

And Stiles starts to wonder what the fuck question the Kasun family asked, and how exactly _Derek_ deciding which implement they beat the hell out of _Stiles_ with would provide an answer.

Derek's voice takes on a warily angry edge. "What happens if I don't?"

"I use the pipe," Disgusting Geezer Veteran says, with that same icy calm, "and whatever happens to her spine will be your fault, Alpha Hale." He trails the pads of his fingers along her back. Stiles twitches in an instinctive, automatic effort to jerk away from his touch, and Derek actually roars his fury, like he stands a chance of intimidating the hunter into not beating her in the spine with something that could break it.

You're behind mountain ash and every other man in this room is armed and really, really good at killing werewolves, she wants to say. Who do you think you're kidding?

She swallows thickly. "Just… Just pick one, Derek." 

"Middle one," Derek says in a rush, sounding so much less sure than he ever has before. "The smooth wooden one."

"Good choice," Disgusting Geezer Veteran says, and Stiles hears his smile, and in his smile, she hears Gerard Argent. He leans down, brushing his mouth close to Stiles's ear, and stage-whispers, "We'll save the wooden one with the notches for later."

Stiles shivers. 

The duffel hits the floor with a thick, clackity _whump_.

The rod, or cane, or dowel, or what-the-hell-ever-it-is whistles through the air. A line of fire cracks open along her back, and Stiles feels her entire body jump as she reflexively tries to escape the pain. The stick whistles again, and Stiles stares at the blackness around her, at Derek's glowing eyes, as the next hit lands and cuts her open again.

And the hits keep coming, spiderwebbing raw lines on her skin, smacking against her jeans, making the world bloom red when she closes her eyes. She chews her lower lip to a shred to keep the screams as far inside as she can, times and counts her breaths, tries to repeat Danielewski's Litany, but she always loses the thread right around grabbing hold of her fear. Geezer Veteran has some kind of sick knack for figuring out when she's almost lost herself and then fucking up her mental rhythm.

At last, the flogging stops, and the fire burns unaided from the nape of her neck to her knees, opening and blossoming and throbbing, a too-thin network of patchwork stitches piecing together her pain. She sags against the bars, and Geezer leans in close, his breath hot on her ear.

"Whose fault is this?"

Stiles spits out the bile, the blood, the drool that gathered in her mouth while she tried to hide in her head. "You're the one swinging the cane."

He smacks his hand — not hard, but how can such a gentle touch light up every nerve ending, every furrow he cut in her skin? — against her back. "Whose fault was the beating, Miss Stilinski?"

"Mine, for being kidnapped by hunters?"

Another slap, and she jerks against the bars, jarring the bone-deep ache of her abused shoulders, setting it to ring in counterpoint to the flog wounds. "I don't understand the fucking question, Jesus!"

"Whose fault was that beating, Miss Stilinski?"

There's only one other possible answer. Stiles bows her head and digs her teeth into her top lip.

* * *

The sound of knocking on the hotel room door left Spencer catapulting from sleep. In the other bed, Morgan grumbled something and rolled over. Spencer sat up and listened. The knock sounded again.

So he turned on the bedside lamp and stumbled his way to the door, half tripping over his too-long pajama pants. He only opened it partway, and saw a pale redhead standing in the hallway. Her hair was a mess, a wild, tangled shock of curls, and her eyes looked bruised, bleary from too much crying and too little sleep. The lighting washed her out, made her skin look pale and gray as any of the drowned corpses he'd seen.

"Miss Cusack?"

The young woman nodded. She pointed at the door. "Can I come in? I want to tell you everything I know."

* * *

"Put her on speaker," Aaron said immediately. "Prentiss, go get the tape recorder. Reid, have you explained her legal situation?"

"Yes," Reid said, voice tinny over the speakerphone.

"Right," Aaron replied. "Miss Cusack?"

"I'm here," a woman replied. Beside Aaron, Rossi crossed his arms over his chest.

"Okay. Start from the beginning, whenever you're ready."

* * *

"You have to understand," Gracie Cusack said, twisting her hands in her lap. She wrung them together, then slowly dragged her thumb along her palm in a self-calming gesture. "It wasn't Eileen's fault. She didn't want to hurt Derek or Stiles. If they'd been enemies, she just wouldn't have let Stiles be here."

"By Eileen," Hotch asked, before Spencer could ask what she meant by that last sentence, "you mean Eileen Graham?"

"Yes. Eileen Graham. She wasn't Derek's enemy; it wasn't personal." Cusack dipped her head, swallowing. Morgan leaned forward, toward her. Listening. "It's just — the men came to us. Hunters. They said the Kasun family had a question, and they'd use Benny — Benny Findlay — to answer it if she couldn't hand them another emissary."

Spencer placed a mental question mark next to that word and tried to search back through his memory of everything he'd read. Had he read anything about a Kasun family? The name was Serbo-Croatian, but he hadn't read much about the former Yugoslavia. Morgan looked up at him, an eyebrow arched, as if he expected Dr. Reid, actual genius, to have the exposition ready.

But Yugoslavian criminals were not actually Spencer's specialty. He shook his head. 'Garcia,' he mouthed, and Morgan nodded in reply.

"So she told them about Stiles, and how she'd made the commit back in Beacon Hills. Word from the wood is she inked it into her skin when she was just barely eighteen and never looked back. And — and the hunters —" Here, Cusack sobbed, bending to grind the heels of her entwined hands into her eyes. "God, they're such awful, awful people. They wanted keys to her apartment, an idea of where she's allowed to go in the city."

A long silence, as Cusack cried, shoulders shaking with the force of her sobbing. In the dim, hazy light and Spencer's own leftover tiredness, her blue eyes seemed to burn, a stark contrast to the fiery orange-gold of her hair.

Morgan asked, gently, "Did Ms. Graham have all that? Did she give it to them?"

A few more tears slipped down Cusack's cheeks, and then she said, "Of course she did. They gave her pictures of Benny. It'd be easy to just shoot him, shoot her emissary and see how she held on. See what was left of her. See if that answered the Kasuns' question."

"Are you saying she and Mr. Findlay were in a relationship? It's my understanding that she's married to a woman named Johanna?"

"She'd never cheat on Johanna," Cusack said, completely certain and almost _pious_. "But you have to understand, without Benny, there couldn't _be_ an Eileen Graham, C. P. A. He's her _emissary_. I thought you knew? Alex told me there's a Rossi with you."

Reid looked at Morgan. Morgan looked at Reid.

But Rossi's voice came over the speaker, strangely gentle, for all that he sounded intense. "Gracie, what was the question?"

Gracie swallowed her sobs, lifting her chin, and said, "The Kasuns' question is: can they break — shatter, more like — the commit?"

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: The rape/non-con tag is for a nominally consensual sexual encounter they're coerced into by parties holding the involved characters captive, as both entertainment for themselves and a means of inflicting psychological damage. Also, because this is a captivity story involving a female character and people are shitty, the threat of sexual violence is omnipresent.
> 
> There are scenes of physical torture.
> 
> * * *
> 
> NOTES: Not actually complete, but I've been sitting on it for long enough, I think. 
> 
> There's some serious timeline fuckery going on here; I'm using the more 'classic' Criminal Minds cast, the one that's best known to me, and am ignoring how the CM timeline does not at all match up with the TW timeline.
> 
> Ten thousand thanks to Dogstar for this one, and also to Cheloya.


End file.
